Parents are proud of the weirdest things!

Good morning all!

When you become a parent, you lose all logic as to what makes you proud.  There are things all parents are proud of in their children:  Good grades, any sort of awards, an athletic accomplishment, a kid who wakes for school without a series of sonic booms for an alarm.  And then there's a whole closet of weird stuff that sort of makes our parental chests swell with illogical pride.

The other day I came home and Peaches, Skippy, and one of Peaches friends, we'll call him Buddy, were sitting in the living room.  The TV was off.

This raised an immediate red flag for me.

"We have a surprise for you,"  Says Skippy in a very, very cheerful voice.

More red flags.

He then walked me into the kitchen. On the counter sat the laptop computer.  He turned on the computer.

And there was something really, really wrong with the screen.

I'd never seen those big black ink spots before.

"We were goofing around and I jumped onto Peaches' lap and she had the computer on her side and I landed on it in an awkward way."

Now as a parent, you've got two choices in a situation like this.Typically I lose my mind and shriek for about fifteen minutes.   Except, and this is something I brought to mind the moment Skippy showed me the computer:

I've never yelled at the kids for breaking anything expensive before.

In the files of my mental Rolodex I went through all the electronics the kids have had access to and I realized they haven't broken or lost any of them.  Ipods?  Phones?  Computers?  The car?

None of them.

(Okay, the car got broken three times in Skippy's care, but each of those times he wasn't in the car, it was parked in a lot or a driveway, and someone hit him.  So I really can't fault him for that.)

That's when I took a deep breath and said, "Well, it's really your father's computer.  You'll have to tell him what you did."

So we then all sat down in the living room with the TV off and waited a bit for Hubby to come home.  He knew instantly something was wrong when he walked in.  I'm never in the living room when the TV is off.

Skippy went through the whole speech again with him.  And, to Hubby's credit, he didn't howl either.  (He rarely does.  The kids figured if I didn't kill them, they were home free.)

Later, when the kids were gone at their various activities, and I was pondering how proud I was of them for not trying to hide the broken computer, I heard hubby laughing.  He called me into to the office.  There, on the main computer, the first screen that came up when he signed in was a Google page of sites to visit when you need to fix a laptop computer screen.

Yep, the kids were trying to be resourceful.

Brings to mind my very first car accident and how I tried to cover that up.

But that's a story for another day.

Now, lest you think my kids are all the way grown up and responsible, as we were remarking how responsible they'd been, I got a text from Skippy. He was at a book store and wanted to know if I would pay for some of the books he was picking out.  (Our deal is I pay half for books, but nothing for games, Cd's, or anything like that.)

My response:  Computer screen...

His response:  Oh yeah.  I forgot.

So we've got a ways to go.  But for now, I'm pretty proud.  Proud of my computer screen breaking kids.

Parents are weird.

A Salute to Mothers...and their children.

Good morning!

So today is Mother's Day here in the US.  Normally I'm against the whole fake holiday thing, but Mother's Day and Father's Day are okay in my book because, well, if done right, parenting is, next to marriage, the most difficult, heartbreaking, amazing job you will ever take on.

So here's to you, MOM!

What makes a Mom? 

Well, first you have to have children that call you "mom."  They can be any age, they can still live in the house or not, but they have to, at least a couple times a year, call you "mom" and you had to have, at some point, changed their diapers/held their hair when they barfed, washed  vomit and blood from their clothes, and kissed their boo boos.

You also had to have yelled at them for missing curfew, failing to turn in homework, sassing you, not cleaning their room, or leaving candy wrappers all over the house.

To be a mom, you had to have cried, prayed, sweat, cheered, and raged in private, because being a mom is sometimes a very private thing.

You have to be a person who can love another person so completely that no matter what your child says or does, you are willing to hold them in your arms and want only the very best for them.

To be a mom, you have to be willing to teach them everything you believe and stand for...all the while knowing they will likely, either for a short time or for life, adopt beliefs and causes opposite of yours.  And you have to be okay with that.

Back in the day...

With that in mind, let me tell you about my kids.  I've got the boy child, Skippy...he's a surly looking kid who did very well in high school, but hates the idea of school in general.  He's very smart, but has no desire to do anything.  Yet he reads...he reads endlessly and thinks about things.   His views about the big issues of the day are rigid, but there's a compassion there that brings me to my knees every day.  The only thing he cannot forgive is hypocrisy. 

He may seem to be directionless to the casual outsider, but he knows exactly who he is and where he wants to be.  He's just waiting for the world to offer him a path he's interested in taking.

Then there's Girl child, Peaches.  Like her brother, she suffers no hypocrites, but she's slightly kinder to people.  She has an enormous capacity for love, and she champions the fringe dwellers of our society, while demanding that those around her take responsibility for themselves.  She is the most self sufficient child I've met at 15, and the most self aware.  She has a tremendous flair for style, though some of her outfits draw criticism from the more stodgy people in her life.  She doesn't care what people say, she's going to express herself through her dress, and I rarely have to ask what her mood is.  I usually know just by looking at the color of her tights.

To someone who doesn't know my children well, Skippy and Peaches might seem like odd, slacker kids with rebellious streaks and no respect for authority.  To be honest, it's never easy raising strong willed kids who don't march to the lock step beat of society's expectations.  Any parent with a kid who falls outside the guidelines of "normal" will agree with me. 

It's not that they don't respect authority.  They just don't respect hypocrisy, and they certainly don't respect those who try and make up their minds for them.   As they get older, Hubby and I may not always agree with our kids.  But we taught them to take responsibility for their actions, to pay their own way, to work hard, to bow a knee to God, and to always be honest, no matter what the cost.

They'll never make it in politics, and they will make me crazy until the day I die.  But I love them and I know they are going to be okay.

So Moms, especially those of you who have kids who aren't always clean, who aren't always sweet, who don't keep silent, or who don't feel like talking, here's a salute to you. 

Oh, so this ISN'T the tie that binds us together?

I have cramps.

I don't just have cramps.  I have cramps that would drop a charging elephant.  I have cramps that make it impossible to sit up, stand up, walk, or tie my shoes without moaning.  Basically, I'm a zombie...only instead of brains, I'm looking for the perfect pain med that will relieve cramps.

Did I miss work?

Of course not.  I'm a woman, and as such, I suffer every month the searing pain that feels like everything inside me is being tied into knots and then set on fire while drunken monkeys do the hustle up and down my back, and I do so without missing work.

When I gave birth to a daughter, I knew I had brought into the world another with whom I could commiserate about cramps.  I knew that the day would come that she, too, would beg for not one, but TWO heating pads.  We would shop for dark sweat pants together and think of ways we could lie down all day without missing work or school.

Just give me two fingers of Midol with a Pamparin chaser and I'll be fine.

And so it came to  pass a couple years ago that Peaches joined the ranks of cramp sufferers and our bond, not as mother and daughter, but as women who are handicapped in the gender wars...handicapped by their own monthly clock.  And believe me, when the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella is high tailing it back to her comfy couch, hot tea, and romantic comedy movies.

Peaches and I truly have a bond...and each month it's renewed as we ignore the men in the house who warn us to not sleep on the heating pad while it's on, or who don't bring us the MIDOL FAST ENOUGH.  I believed she and I were truly on the same plane.

Until today.

Today, I have cramps.  I've kept it to myself...mostly because I work with men, and I'm not about to discuss cramps at work...and certainly NOT with Elsie W.  (By the way...have you VOTED YET?)  So I waited until I was taking Peaches to cheer practice before I confessed my agony.

"My ovaries are throbbing."  (I have always had a flair for the humorous.)  I thought that this new way of saying "I HAVE CRAMPS."  Would be appreciated by Peaches.

I thought wrong.

She looked at me, horror frozen on her face like those weird "pudding faces" you see in TV commercials.  Then she said, "Why would you say something like that?"

Hey, I thought it was funny.  Why do I say 90% of anything I say?  Because I think it's funny.

Peaches, however, did not think this was funny.

"What, you have a problem with that?"

"No.  But why...why would you say something like that?"

Friends, there was no one else in the car.  No one else nearby.  I've said stuff WAY worse than that..."Okay, fine,"  I said, "I thought it would be more colorful than saying, 'I have cramps' for the tenth time."

"well, stop being colorful."  She got out of the car.  "And good luck with your cramps."

Yeah, good luck with my cramps.  Guess who is going to use up all the GOOD Midol and NOT buy any more.  Good luck with that!

I need to go lie down now, eat some toast, and watch Biggest Loser.  Does that count as a workout?  Someone go ask KRAM.  I can't right now.

I have cramps.

Teens and 4 year olds...Moms don't sleep if either is in the house.

Good evening!

Remember, parents, when the kids were babies, getting you up in the middle of the night and you'd slog through your day exhausted, but eager in the knowledge that just as soon as the kids slept through the night, your life would be back to normal?

Weren't we idiots?

I haven't had a full, uninterrupted, 7-8 hour long night's sleep since early 1993.  I have a sleep debt that rivals the national debt...of any country.  My sleep debt is worse than my credit card balances.  And I know I'm not the only one.  How do I know?

I stop at either Starbucks or Kwik Trip every morning on my way to work for one thing and one thing only:  the life giving, energy creating black gold that is coffee.  And I've discovered another amazing "Mother's Helper" in the form of "Five hour Energy."  Tastes vile, but it gets me through the afternoons and to dinner time.

But I'm not here today to talk about coffee.  If I were, this would simply be a hymn of praise to the beverage I discovered so late in life  (33).  But it's not about that.

No, today I want to weigh in on the myth that once your child is able to get him/herself around to things, your stress and worrying days are over.  Sorry...they have just begun.  See, once the kid can drive, you stop knowing where they are every moment of the day.  You stop knowing who they are with, who all their friends are, what they are eating.  Once a kid goes mobile, it's all over but the gray hair and the sleepless nights.

The kids have no idea why we worry because 16, 17, 18 year olds are sure that since they are behaving and obeying the laws of the road, everyone else is.  Nothing bad can happen to them as long as they behave.  I guess I sort of blame modern day parenting, because haven't we spent a lot of time teaching our kids that if they behave they won't get into trouble?  So we give them that false sense of security, and release to the world. Meanwhile we parents sit at home, and conjure up about 900 different ways our kids are being injured, maimed, abducted, brainwashed, drugged, mugged, mauled, and sold into a cult.  By the time they roll in to the house, no matter what the time, we are in a full on parental stress lather, and furious at the kid.  Kid doesn't understand why we are furious...and thus begins yet another round of eye rolling, door slamming,  Face book status wailing that makes up much of teen/parent relationships.

Case in point:  last week Skippy wanted to drive to Chicago to see some friends.  For the record, I've never met these friends, but every friend of Skippy's I have met has been polite, well mannered, and well behaved.  He's gone to see these friends before, so it wasn't like this was a wild request.  So, with much parental admonition to "be careful"  and "be smart" and "don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, and keep your clothes on"  (my four point plan for keeping my kids off Maury Povich), we waved him off to the Windy City.

Now, since Skippy is very close to his 18th birthday and since he's been a pretty responsible kid all along  (Following, as he had, the four point plan to avoiding the Maury Povich show) we don't really have so much a curfew for him in the summer as we do a suggestion that if he's going to be later than 12:30, he needs to text us.

As a side note, let me weigh in on texting.  I think the immediate link we have to everyone via cell phone and text is wonderful.  I loved having a cell phone because it ended my need to look up phone numbers of movie theaters on the rare nights Hubby and I actually went out and hired a babysitter.  However...since we have that immediate and direct connection, and moms I know you feel this way too, isn't it TOO ANNOYING when we text our kids and they don't get back to us IMMEDIATELY?  Seriously...what is wrong with them.

(Which is about the time I get the lecture from Skippy  "Mom, what do you want...you want me to text and drive and wind up dead?  Or on Maury Povich?")

So texting is almost as much of a curse as it is a blessing for us moms who panic when we don't hear from our precious darlings immediately.

But I'm telling you all that to tell you this:  The day we sent Skippy careening into the big city, we didn't give him a specific time to be home.  "You're not spending the night down there."  (After all...the friends he was going to see are females...a year older, you know  COLLEGE GIRLS...)

At 11:00, which is my bedtime, I texted him and asked when he'd be home.  His response?  "Later." 

I'd like to say he's a man of few words, but really he just likes aggravating me with one word answers.

So, as I do when my kids are out late at night, I watched TV on the couch until I fell into a fitful sleep.  At 3:30 AM, the cats all bounded to the door, because, since our cats are really more like dogs than cats, they run to the door every time someone pulls into the drive.   Skippy skipped  (hence the nickname) into the house, gleeful at his fun day in the big city.

Parents, which of us is ever in a mood to be amused at 3:30 in the morning?  Right.

I said, "I'm glad you're home safely. Did you have fun?"  Normally a question like this would illicit a one note grunt, but not at 3:30 AM.  No, at 3:30 AM he wants to TALK...better yet, he wants to SHOW ME HIS ART PROJECTS.

Adorable...but at 3:30 AM...really?

What? 

I sent you to Chicago, to hang out with college girls, and you come back with ART PROJECTS?

"Mom, I made a boat!  I made a boat and rocket ship!"

You know, parents, how we are always wishing our darling babies could just stay innocent and enthused about life?  Before they got iPods and girlfriends, and concert tickets to see bands made up of young folks who need a sandwich and a hug? 

Well, at 3:30 AM, I had that.

We talked for about fifteen minutes about his day, the artwork he did, what he and his friends had for lunch.  We talked about all the stuff we used to talk about but haven't lately.  We talked about nothing, and everything.  For fifteen minutes in the middle of the night, I was not the enemy.

Was I tired the next morning?  OH YEAH.  I hit the coffee and the 5 hour energy really hard.  But would I do it again?

This is Skippy's senior picture.

Those of you who are parents know the answer to that.